Morning light
453 Words
The first thing Harper noticed was the silence.
No alarm, no birds outside her apartment window, no hum of her coffeemaker. Instead, the faint murmur of voices drifted through the walls, the smell of leather and smoke clung to the sheets, and a heavy arm lay draped across her waist.
Ryder.
She blinked against the dim light creeping through the blinds, reality catching up all at once. She was in the Iron Vultures’ clubhouse. In his bed. With the man who had turned her entire world upside down.
Heat rushed to her cheeks as memories from the night before crashed back—his mouth, his hands, the way he’d claimed her like she’d always been his. She should’ve felt ashamed, reckless. Instead, she felt alive.
“Morning, teacher.”
His voice was rough, sleep-tinged, and when she turned her head, Ryder was already awake, watching her with a lazy grin. His hair was mussed, jaw shadowed, but his eyes were sharp, steady.
“You don’t look like a morning person,” she teased, her voice softer than she meant it to be.
He smirked. “Don’t usually wake up next to someone worth looking at.”
Her stomach flipped. “Smooth.”
“Honest.” His hand slid down her side, warm against her bare skin. “You okay?”
The question caught her off guard. She expected cockiness, maybe a joke. Instead, there was something in his tone—something that almost sounded like concern.
“I…” She hesitated. “I don’t know what I am.”
He propped himself up on one elbow, his gaze steady on hers. “You’re mine. That’s what you are.”
Her breath hitched. “You can’t just say things like that.”
“I don’t say what I don’t mean.” His voice was firm, absolute. “Last night wasn’t about blowing off steam. I don’t bring women here. Ever. But I brought you. That should tell you something.”
It did. And that terrified her.
She rolled onto her back, staring at the ceiling, trying to sort through the storm inside her. “People are going to talk. They already are.”
“Let ‘em,” Ryder said, not missing a beat. “They don’t matter. You do.”
Silence stretched between them, broken only by the muffled laughter of bikers somewhere down the hall. Harper closed her eyes, swallowing hard. For once, she wasn’t Harper Quinn, the good teacher, the careful sister, the woman who lived by rules. She was just… his.
When Ryder leaned down and kissed her again—slow this time, tender, nothing like the fire of the night before—she let herself believe it could last.
- Writer
